I looked at the cell phone, staring at it one last time, and inhaled a deep breath. Standing up again, and taking it into my hands, I almost screamed as a figure showed up in the doorway. After a couple moments, I relaxed, feeling slightly foolish, as the only people in this flat were Jonghyun and I. Letting out a nervous chuckle, I closed my eyes and opened them up again, trying to calm myself.

“Jonghyun. You just scared me.”

“I don’t want to stay here anymore. Let’s go out and do something.”

“But Jonghyun, you’re sick-”

He ignored me and grabbed my arm, and yanked me out of the room. We walked briskly to the living room, where he grabbed his jacket. “Do you mind taking a walk?” “No, but are you sure you want to go out so quickly?” I gently touched his forehead and he turned his head away, not looking at me. “I’m fine.” Knowing that once he made up his mind, he wouldn’t change it, we walked outside where a slight breeze was blowing. It crept under my coat and scarf, and I was sure that Jonghyun could feel the wind biting at him, but he pretended to look like he was unaffected by it.

“So, what did you want to do?”

“Come here.”

He looked at me and pointed at a beautiful, large tree. Though the ends of winter were starting to disappear, there were still some golden leaves piled by its roots. The branches were thick and gnarled, and there were small footholds amongst it. I smiled as I remembered how Jonghyun and I used to sit in these kinds of trees all the time, trying to keep the sun from running away. We’d hide in its branches, our parents calling at us and wondering where we were, hoping to be able to stay outdoors for longer. Hoping that no one would ever find us, that the dark would never touch us-back then, that was all that mattered.

“Remember how when we were little, we used to climb these all the time?”

“Yeah. We’d make our parents go crazy. They couldn’t understand why we liked it.”

He grinned, planting a foot on it, and hoisted himself on to the tree. Slowly but surely, he made his way up the trunk, and lifted himself deftly so that he was sitting on a branch. As I watched him climb it, my heart raced slightly. When the sun touched his hair, he looked like Jaejoong, and it wasn’t the only time I’d felt this way. When I looked at them closely, I believed that they could have passed as brothers. It must have been the lips, or the eyes-though Jaejoong had an almost heavenly aura to him, Jonghyun was like his cuter, boy-next-door reincarnation. For some strange reason, I’d been noticing this physical aspect of Jonghyun a lot lately, and constantly compared him to Jaejoong. If they were related by any chance, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Suddenly sapping me from my thoughts, he patted the spot beside him. “Yo, ________, are you going to leave me up here, or are you going to come up too?”  I smiled at him in response, quickly scaling the tree. After a couple of seconds, we were sitting together.

“It was Jaejoong who spoke to you, isn’t it?”

My eyes blinked open wide in surprise. “Did you hear us?”

“It was obvious. I knew he’d call sooner or later. I just didn’t know it would be now.”

“Are you really leaving?”

“I think so.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you.”

I gave him a look. “This is so frustrating! It’s like everyone is trying to hide something from me, and they’re giving me the excuse that they’re protecting me. I’m not a little girl anymore, Jonghyun. I’m a survivor.” I pointed at the scar, slashed in red across my face angrily, and everything that Jaejoong had told me came flooding back into my mind. “This is the reason why I’m alive. This is the reason as to why I’ve lived my life like this now. But I want to change, Jonghyun-I don’t want to just sit there, cry, and wait for someone to help me. You’ve always done that for me, but I can’t let you do that anymore. I can’t have you picking up all my slack forever, which is why I want to help you this time. Just please, tell me what’s going on!”

I inhaled sharply as I said the last few words of my tirade. Jonghyun looked at me, clearly amused, but his eyes were serious.

“I guess you don’t need me anymore, huh?”

“What? Jonghyun, no, I do-I just don’t want you to baby me anymore-”

“But ________, I still need you. And I’m worried that the truth will not just hurt you-it’ll also hurt me as well.”

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬